


Picono Chipochi cipi Minichi: Rini Cat Vuro

by Kittyreaper



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap
Genre: Constructed Language, Educational, Guide book, I think?, Illustrations, Meta, characters mentioned or used as examples, fan-language, includes diagrams
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-23
Updated: 2019-04-06
Packaged: 2019-11-28 17:22:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18211310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kittyreaper/pseuds/Kittyreaper
Summary: I may or may not be creating a language.





	1. Pori: No: Nu Vichi

So, in case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been kind of dead lately. My dropping off the face of the internet was due to many different reasons, but, uh, this was one of them.

I may or may not be creating a language.

I suppose a month or so ago, by complete chance, I stumbled across something called _Va Ehenív_ . _Ehe_ (property of Nina-Kristine Johnson) is a fan-language created for the Gerudo people featured in Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask. I quickly became totally smitten with it. However, then I started to think a little too hard, and we all know bad things happen when I think too hard. Thoughts flew through my head– thoughts like: _Oh my god, this is so cool_ , _Why am I just now finding out about this_ , _Are there more Zelda fan-languages I’ve never heard of_ , and, the kicker, _Why don’t the Minish have a language?!_

For those of you who don’t know, the Minish are a race prominently featured in The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap. They’re pure, adorable, and give me life, but people only seem to draw fanart of them on St. Paddy’s Day. In the sole game they’re seen in, they’re given the start of a language at the very beginning, but it remains unknown whether the game’s creators planned to actually develop that, or what, so they kind of simultaneously do and don’t have a language. This saddens me. The Minish deserve better than this, danggit.

So I decided to give them better.

First, though, I wanted to make sure no one else had already created a fan-language for them, so I did some digging. A quick Google search revealed that two people on some Zelda forum briefly tried to make a Minish fan-language, but that thread died years ago. I don’t remember the exact forum (it might have been Zelda Dungeon or something? Idk), nor do I remember their usernames, but they existed, so I’m pointing it out before someone accuses me of stealing their idea.

Anyways, so then I spent like a month throwing together a fan-language.

My baby’s vocabulary is far from complete, and I’m learning new things about the language and its dialects (of which there are several) every day. But, the dictionary is almost 50 freaking pages now, so I figured I should probably start posting stuff about it. RIP.

I’m not sure what exactly people would be interested in learning about _Minichi_ , but I definitely plan on covering the basics (including pronunciation, the written language, and various common phrases and sayings) at some point. If there’s anything in particular you want to know, feel free to comment it or whatever.

Don’t ask about the freaking dialects, though. Do not get me started. I have been formulating seven different versions of the same language. I’m dead inside.

_Miori, umoriut ichiri!_


	2. Pori: Ri: Minilochia, Unbia, ano Gachia

_ _

_ Rini umori! Chino picono chipochi cipi Minichi ichiri. _

Didn’t understand a word you just read? Don’t worry– by the end of this, you will.

Welcome back to  _ Picono Chipochi cipi Minichi: Rini Cat Vuro _ , my explanation series on the Zelda fan-language I am developing. Today, I’m going to cover the most basic essentials to understanding the language: dialects, letters, and sounds.

(With pictures. : 3)

##  Mini Pori: No: Minilochia

Right off the bat, I think it’s most important y’all understand what the dialects are all about. Here are some facts to start you off:

    1. The language I’ve created is called _Komifæri_.
    2. In-universe, the oldest dialect of _Komifæri_ , and the one that’s considered standard _Komifæri_ , is _Færi_ , the language of the fairies.
    3. __Komifæri_ has three main dialects: _Færi_ , _Kokiri_ , and _Minichi_._
    4. Because my goal going into this was to give the Minish a language, I created _Minichi_ first, then developed the other dialects afterwards.
    5. _Minichi_ features three separate accents (in order of age): _Comifærishi_ , _Onicovichi_ , and _Coruchi_. Each accent is used by either the Forest, Town, or Mountain Minish, respectively.
    6. _Dæmonik_ , the language of the demons, is like a sibling language to _Færi_ , and therefore _Komifæri_ as a whole, but is not considered such, because of the long-standing bitterness and hatred between the two groups.
    7. If you count _Færi_ , _Kokiri_ , _Comifærishi_ , _Onicovichi_ , _Coruchi_ , and _Dæmonik_ – all of them – as separate versions of _Komifæri_ , that adds up to six different versions, so I was one dialect off in the estimate featured in part one.
    8. _Onicovichi_ (Town Minish) is considered standard Minish, because it’s the most widely-spoken. Consequently, _Onicovichi_ is what this guide will be for, but I’ll probably make a later post explaining how _Comifærishi_ and _Coruchi_ sound.



Below is a diagram I drew up of all the  _ Comifeiriano minilochia _ and how they’re all related. The name of each  _ minilochi _ is spelled in a Romanization of its own alphabet (because  _ of course _ I gave each one its own alphabet).

Also, note:  _ minilochi _ means both dialect and accent.

##  Mini Pori: Ri: Unbia

Okay, so now I can actually talk about  _ Minichi _ .

_ Nu unbia _ means ‘the letters’ , and is what the Minish call their alphabet and character system. Below is a cheat sheet of all the Minish  _ unbia _ . Regarding each row, the top character is the Minish  _ unbi _ , the middle is the name of the  _ unbi _ , and the bottom is the English equivalent and-or general sound it makes. I’ll get more into pronunciation in the next sub-section.

So, even just glancing over it, you’ll notice I punted a lot of English letters when making the Minish  _ unbia _ . Specifically, the list is: D, H, K, Q, S, W, X, and Y. Letters like K and D were punted because not-punted letters could make the same sound as them, while letters like S and W were punted because I decided I just didn’t want to include them.

Below is a cheat sheet for Minish punctuation, formatted the same as the  _ unbia _ cheat sheet.

Each punctuation is derived from a sound or letter associated with the thing being expressed. Periods are small floating N’s, representing a thoughtful humming sort of sound. Exclamation marks are two stacked I’s, representing an excited screech. Question marks are small floating Ch’s, as in  _ chopiri _ , the word for ‘to question/ask/wonder’ . Commas are small floating O’s, as in  _ ano _ , the word for ‘and/so’ , which is also often used as a filler word. Quotation marks consist of a  _ go _ and  _ pi _ , as in  _ gopiri _ , the word for ‘to talk/speak/tell’ . Lastly, colons are long floating E’s, representing the ‘ehhhh’ sound someone might make while looking for or remembering a list. All that being said, when you read aloud something written in  _ nu Minichiano unbia _ , you do not actually say “Eehhhh” before you give a list or something, just like how, in English, you don’t say “Period” every time you finish a sentence.

When writing in  _ nu Minichiano unbia _ , there’s no true right answer, but there are wrong answers. Many wrong answers. I will now give some basic rules for writing Minish characters (with examples).

  * Words are written left-to-right, and so are character ‘blocks.’



  * If a vowel comes after a consonant, you can write the vowel inside the consonant.



  * If any character is above another, that means it comes after the one on the bottom.



  * Ch is irregular. The order of stacked characters involving Ch is top-Ch-bottom.



  * If two characters are both inside of or above another, side-by-side, the left one is first. Only vowels can be written side-by-side in this particular manner, and it can only be two at most.



  * When writing what would be a proper noun (or an adjective, in some cases) in English – like people/place names, names of organizations/groups, titles (both book titles and person titles– example: King ____), and nationalities (examples: Minish, Hylian) – it’s considered polite to make the first letter of the word big. It’s not required, as, in this writing system, capitalization isn’t required, but if you start _Ruchipo _____ ( ‘Elder ____’ ) with stacked small letters, it’ll be seen as passive aggressive, like you don’t think the Elder’s important.



  * You can choose to write certain characters big and others small however you want, as long as you’re following the basic rules. This is referred to as character manipulation, and is common in artistic and fancy writing, as well as signatures, as it allows the writer to emphasize words and sounds as they please.



##  Mini Pori: Tu: Gachia

And now for pronunciation.

The  _ Minichiano _ consonants are B, C (hard C), Ch, F, G (hard G), J (soft G), L, M, N, P, R, T, V, and Z. Of them, phonetically, R is irregular. If R is the first or last letter in a word, it’s pronounced like a normal R, but if it’s in the middle of a word, it’s ‘flipped’ so it sounds like a D. (This is called the  _ Rumu ziri Ria _ , or ‘Rule of R’s’ – it and R-rules similar to it appear in most  _ minilochia _ of  _ Comifeiri _ .)

The  _ Minichiano _ vowels are A (tall ‘ah’ , as in ‘ball’ ), E ( ‘eh’ , as in ‘pet’ ), I ( screechy sort of ‘ee’ , as in, well, the double E’s of ‘screech’ ), O (tall ‘oh’, as in the O of ‘hair bow’ ), and U ( ‘uh’ , as in the O of ‘money’ ).

The extra, weird  _ gachia _ (sounds) are ‘oi’ ( oh + ee = a sound like ‘boy’ without the B), ‘ei’ (eh + ee = a sound like the name of the letter A), and ‘ai’ (ah + ee = a sound like ‘high’ without the H).

The pronunciation of  _ Minichiano _ words kind of reminds me of Latin. For example, as far as I know, the Latin word  _ domine _ is pronounced ‘daw-mee-neh (or nay)’ . The consonant leads the syllable, and the vowell is not affected by whatever consonant may follow it. It’s the same case in  _ Minichi _ – for example,  _ richi _ ( ‘heart’ ) is pronounced ‘ree-chee’ , and  _ rini _ ( ‘with’ ) is pronounced ‘ree-nee’ . For contrast, the English word  _ book _ is pronounced ‘b o͝ok’ , while  _ boon _ is pronounced ‘bo͞on’ .

* * *

 

And with that concludes today’s lesson. The next part will be on  _ Bililori Lufiri _ – basic grammar! Yay!

~~ Boooo! ~~

As always, if there’s anything in particular you want to learn, let me know in the comments and I’ll add it to the list of future topics.

_ Umoriut ichiri! _


	3. Pori: Tu: Birilori Lufiri

_Rini umori! Chino picono chipochi cipi Minichi ichiri._

So, this week, we’ll be discussing my favorite topic: Grammar.

Okay, I know, grammar sucks.

I have mixed feelings about grammar. I am the biggest stickler for it in English (my first language), but when I was learning French, it was my most dreaded section on any test. My goal with this chapter is to make _Minichiano_ grammar as easy to digest as possible, so you guys can utilize it as well as possible. Like with _Pori: Ri_ , _Pori: Tu_ will be divided into three subsections: basic subjects and pronouns, sentence structure, and simple verbs and phrases.

## Mini Pori: No: Birilori Rogilia ano Ruginoroa

The _birilori rogilia_ (basic subjects) are _Ro_ , _Pico_ , _Coro/Cori/Core_ , _Ropi_ , and _Copi_ . When coming up with them, I was inspired by the bits of Minish dialogue given at the beginning of Minish Cap, and the forum thread from several years ago with those two guys who were making a Minish fan-language and never finished (mentioned in _Pori: No_ ).

The diagram below shows their meanings and how to write them in _nu unbia_ (which was covered in _Pori: Ri_ ).

I would like to highlight _Coro/Cori/Core_ . _Coro_ (Coh-doh) means ‘he’ , and _Cori_ (Coh-dee) is ‘she’ , while _Core_ (Coh-deh) would be equivalent to ‘they’ used as a singular, or a number of neopronouns. _Core_ is gender-neutral, and therefore refers to people whose gender is unclear or doesn’t necessarily fit into either male or female.

Something one will quickly realize about _Minichi_ is that many, many, many words in the dictionary can have multiple different meanings, depending on the context. When it comes to _rogilia ano ruginoroa_ (pronouns), this can be an experience. Here’s a run-down of the different meanings and forms of the _rogilia_ :

  * _Ro_ (Roh) –  _Ro_ means the subject ‘I’ , _rori_ means the pronoun ‘me’ , and _rono_ means the determiner ‘my’
  * __Pico_ (Pee-coh) –  _Pico__ means both the subject and pronoun ‘you’ , and __picono__ means the determiner ‘your’
  * _Coro_ (Coh-doh) –  _Coro_ means the subject ‘he’ , pronoun ‘him’ , and determiner ‘his’
  * _Cori_ (Coh-dee) –  _Cori_ means the subject ‘she’ , and both the pronoun and determiner ‘her’
  * _Core_ (Coh-deh) – _Core_ means a singular, gender-neutral subject, pronoun, and determiner
  * _Ropi_ (Roh-pee) –  _Ropi_ means the subject ‘we’ , _roni_ means the pronoun ‘us’ , and _rino_ means the determiner ‘our’
  * _Copi_ (Coh-pee) –  _Copi_ means the subject ‘they’ , _coni_ means the pronoun ‘them’ , and _nino_ means the determiner ‘their’



The following words are being dumped in this section, because I’m not sure where else to put them: _chino_ (this), _chilo_ (that), _chinoa_ (these/those– plural of _chino_ ), _cho_ (it/thing), _miogu_ (although/though/despite), _miori_ (regardless/nonetheless/but still).

## Mini Pori: Ri: Lufiri, Zeiriria, ano Inirigoa

_Lufiri_ means ‘structure’ , and in this context refers to syntax. The basic Minish syntax is, as shown above, Subject + Indirect Object + Direct Object + Verb. If there are prepositions, they will typically go at the very beginning or very end of the sentence.

If you want to make a sentence negative, you’d put a _giro_ ( ‘not/none/zero’ ) in front of either an object or verb, depending on context. For example, if you want to say ‘I don’t have any Rupees.’ you would say _Ro giro Rupia ubi_ . – ‘I have zero/no Rupees.’ If you want to say ‘I don’t like her.’ you would say _Ro cori giro rinuri_. – ‘I don’t like her.’

Putting _zuri_ in front of a present tense verb makes it future tense; _zuro_ ____ makes it ‘would ____’ ; _buri_ is could; and _runi_ is should/must. ‘Maybe’ doesn’t exist, so you would instead say something ‘could’ happen. For example, ‘I might be able to meet you.’ would be _Ro pico buri como_ . – ‘I could meet you.’ When speaking such a phrase, you would probably put some amount of emphasis on _buri_ to establish the level of uncertainty that comes with ‘maybe.’ To make one of these words negative, you put a _giro_ in front of it. For example, ‘I won’t do it.’ would be _Ro cho giro zuri mara._

Note: conjunctions (won’t, can’t, I’m, etc.) don’t exist, so have fun with that.

_Zeiriri_ means ‘change’ (both the noun and verb– it also means ‘to become/transform into’ ), and in this context refers to conjugations. If a word has the suffix - _ut_ (equivalent to -ed) attached to it, it’s a past tense verb. If it has the suffix _-a_ attached, it’s a plural noun. If a noun ends with a U, the U becomes an A when the word pluralizes. For example, the noun _coru_ (mountain) would be pluralized as _cora_ (mountains).

Possessive conjugations – like saying ‘Ethan **’s** dog’ – don’t exist, so you would say ‘the dog of Ethan.’ For example: _Iii, ro nu vicu ziri Iten umori!!_ would mean ‘Ahh, I love the dog of Ethan!!’ i.e. ‘Ahh, I love Ethan’s dog!!’ The exception to this is _coro_ / _cori_ / _core_ , which can all be used as possessives depending on context. For example: _Iii, ro coro vicu umori!!_ would mean ‘Ahh, I love his dog!!’

_Inirigo_ means ‘interrogative’ – i.e. question words. The _inirigoa_ are _chio_ (who), _chici_ (what), _cono_ (when), _cogi_ (where), and _uchi_ (how).

When asking a question, you just put an interrogative in front of the phrase; you do not move around the rest of the words. For example, in English, you would ask ‘How are you feeling?’ but in _Minichi_ you would phrase it as ‘How you feel?’ In English, you would ask ‘What is this?’ but in _Minichi_ it would be ‘What this is?’

I feel like knowing what makes sense and what doesn’t can be more of an intuitive thing with languages, or at least can become one as you learn more of the language, so I’m just going to move on to basic sentences. If you have any questions on this topic, or anything you’d like elaboration on, let me know in a comment or message me.

## Mini Pori: Tu: Birilori Piria ano Pirinola

Basic _piria_ (verbs): _ichiri, ubi, ano riniro_ . _Ichiri_ means ‘to be’ , _ubi_ ‘to have’ , and _riniro_ ‘to feel’ .

There is no Minish word for ‘name’ , so instead of saying ‘My name is ____’ , you would say ‘I am ____’ – in _Minichi_ , _Ro ____ ichiri_ . When asking for someone’s name, you would ask _Chio pico ichiri?_ – ‘Who are you?’ (or ‘Who you are?’ if translated directly).

The Minish dedicate their lives to the perpetuation of happiness and good vibes, so – in this conlang at least – instead of inquiring about another’s state of being, they specifically inquire about their feelings. Instead of asking a general ‘How are you?’ they would ask ‘How do you feel?’ –  _Uchi pico riniro?_

In response, you’d normally say either _Ro uro riniro_ or _Ro guro riniro_ . _Uro_ and _guro_ are catch-all words meaning all things positive or negative respectively. Someone saying they’re feeling _uro_ could be expressing contentment, elation, satisfaction, okay-ness, or any other generally good feeling. Someone saying they’re feeling _guro_ could be expressing anger, sadness, fear, etc. Additionally, as a side note, _uro_ can mean purity or physical light, and _guro_ can mean evil/corruption or physical darkness. It depends on context.

In the spoken language, body language and setting can clarify the exact sentiment of the answer, but if we’re purely dealing with the written language, you’d normally give some sort of follow up to elaborate on your feelings. For example, you could say _Ro guro riniro. Ro giro givoiut, ano ro vuro ubiri._ – ‘I feel bad. I didn’t sleep, and I long for death.’ The first sentence establishes the feeling, and the second explains it.

The words of having (I guess that’s what they’re called now) are _ubiri_ (to want), _ubi_ (to have), _picori_ (to give/the noun gift), and _giori_ (to take). One of those words is probably somewhat familiar. In the English version of The Minish Cap, the humans call the Minish the Picori, while the Minish call themselves the Minish. I had a fun idea for how this could have happened, and made it a part of the language.

The _Minichiano_ word for the verb to give and the noun gift is _picori_ . It’s established in all versions of The Minish Cap, including the manga, that most Minish don’t speak the Hylian language. So, when they appeared before the humans in the pre-canon of Minish Cap, they were probably saying _picori_ a lot in an effort to express that they were giving humanity the Picori Blade and Light Force as gifts. However, while the humans probably understood that these were gifts, they probably didn’t understand that _picori_ meant gift, so they might have thought the Minish were saying that was their race’s name.

Some other basic phrases include _Ura_ – ‘Goddesses.’ This word is used in the same way as an exclamation of ‘God’ or ‘goodness.’ Also, _ano_ is a word used all the time. It means and/so, but has a part-time job as a filler word, equivalent to um/uh. Another popular filler word is _ani_ , which means since/then.

_Rini umori_ , as established in the last part, means ‘with love’ and is the standard Minish greeting. It’s short for _Rini umori, ro pico como._ – ‘I meet you with love.’ The standard Minish farewell is _Umoriut ichiri_ . – ‘Be loved.’ _Picaro_ means please (short for _Pico aro zuro ichiri_ – You would be great); _pichuro_ means thank you (short for _Pico churo ichiri_ – You’re perfect).

* * *

And that was so dense, and I am in so much pain. _Ro viro rinigu, Ura._

_Miori, umoriut ichiri!_ Next part, we’ll finally talk about something I find interesting.


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